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      Trump Didn’t Break Our Democracy. But Did He Fatally Weaken It?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Didn’t Break Our Democracy. But Did He Fatally Weaken It?The election provides a clear example of resilience to authoritarian pressure. But it doesn’t mean our democracy is unbreakable.Susan D. Hyde and Dr. Hyde is a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Saunders is a political scientist in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown.Dec. 15, 2020, 7:04 p.m. ETCredit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesAfter the Electoral College vote on Monday affirming his election, Joe Biden declared that “nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish” the “flame of democracy.” Mr. Biden’s speech and the vote capped a series of victories for democratic institutions, including the Supreme Court’s dismissal of a Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the election results — just the latest turn in the extended refusal of President Trump and his Republican enablers to accept the outcome.Political scientists like us are trying to assess the damage from Mr. Trump’s baseless, inept and ultimately doomed attacks on democracy. Do the sharp rebukes from our courts and other institutions mean that democracy “survived,” and we can simply move on? Or does all the talk about what “saved” American democracy really show that it’s in deep trouble?After all, that Texas lawsuit had the public support of more than half of the Republican House members. And it looks like even Vladimir Putin beat Mitch McConnell to congratulate Mr. Biden.The problem is we’ve been treating Mr. Trump’s attacks on democracy as if they are a pass-fail test. We should instead think of democracy as both damaged and resilient, like a forest after a powerful windstorm.In our research, we argue that though all democracies are imperfect, one of their central virtues is that they are built to be resilient — to bend without breaking, even when elected leaders pull institutions in an authoritarian direction. But just because they’re more flexible doesn’t mean democracies can’t break. Resilience — the ability to adapt and keep functioning under strain — is a resource that needs replenishing, not a guarantee of safe passage.It’s normal for institutions to face challenges from events or from politicians who try to use them for their own purposes. When institutions survive a stress test, they may come out stronger or weaker. Ambiguous laws can be clarified to withstand abuse; regulations can be updated; and public officials gain experience in how to prevent or defend against future tests. But it can take time for the strengthening to occur.The 2020 election provides a clear example of democratic resilience to authoritarian pressure. Election officials and judges fielding legal challenges had to adapt not only to the enormous logistical challenges of the pandemic but also to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric. His attacks — and those from elected officials in his party and from the conservative media — put additional pressure on election officials and poll workers, who faced threats, intimidation efforts and overt pressure to ignore the will of the voters.Yet in most of the more than 10,000 electoral jurisdictions across the country, voters cast ballots without incident and Election Day was peaceful. International election observers praised the election as orderly and organized.Both democracy optimists and pessimists can draw the conclusions they want to see from this example. Optimists can say that our election system faced the 2020 test admirably, and those who run it will be better prepared for future efforts to undermine their work. Pessimists can say that Mr. Trump’s attacks will leave lasting scars. Next time, election officials might give in to political pressure. Or the damage might be invisible, like a tree’s weakened root system, deterring people from running for office or working at the polls.Right now, there’s no way to know if the damage will be permanent. But we do know that democracies are better able to recover from such assaults because they allow for routine, peaceful replacement of leaders or parties. Dictators are more likely to be replaced through rebellion, military coup or civil war than through constitutional processes like elections and impeachment.This is what democracy optimists get right. Mr. Trump’s abuse of foreign policy got him impeached. His spectacular failure to govern during a pandemic got him voted out of office.But eventually, if stretched too far, democratic institutions will reach a limit. There may not be a dramatic break, like a coup, but democracy will be twisted and warped and cannot return to its original shape.Take the example of Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega, after losing several elections, conspired to change the voting rules such that he was able to win the presidency in 2006 with just 38 percent of the vote. He has since moved Nicaragua further toward authoritarianism.Here at home, Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat is his most blatant threat to democracy. He has generated worrisome precedents and undermined shared assumptions about what happens after an incumbent loses. His bizarre legal strategy has failed, but he has turned the base of the Republican Party and many congressional Republicans against valuing democracy for its own sake. And those values are the ultimate source of democratic resilience.But has Mr. Trump stretched democratic institutions beyond recognition, or, provided that they survive their near-term vulnerability, could U.S. democratic institutions grow back stronger?There are already many reform proposals that could help rebuild democratic resilience. Many are focused on what can be reformed: institutions and the rules that govern them. For example, the nonpartisan Election Reformers Network’s proposal to reduce conflicts of interest among secretaries of state, based on successful models in other countries, and other proposals to rectify Mr. Trump’s attacks on checks and balances across the government.But a healthy, resilient democracy also requires sufficient citizen support for democracy across the political spectrum. And that, in turn, depends on both parties embracing a commitment to democratic principles — a tall order given the Republican Party’s recent behavior.The trouble for those wanting to put this period behind them is that it’s hard to assess whether the damage is lasting until it’s too late. Our democracy has survived for now, but we don’t yet know whether some crucial democratic institutions bent so far that faced with the next test, they’ll break.Susan D. Hyde (@dshyde) is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Elizabeth N. Saunders (@ProfSaunders) is an associate professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Defying Trump, McConnell Seeks to Squelch Bid to Overturn the Election

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesElectoral College ResultsBiden’s CabinetDefense SecretaryAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDefying Trump, McConnell Seeks to Squelch Bid to Overturn the ElectionSenator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, congratulated President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and pleaded with Republicans privately not to join an effort by House members to throw out the results.“The Electoral College has spoken. So today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, said on Tuesday.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesDec. 15, 2020, 6:13 p.m. ETBreaking with President Trump’s drive to overturn his election loss, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday congratulated President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on his victory and began a campaign to keep fellow Republicans from joining a doomed last-ditch effort to reverse the outcome in Congress.Although Mr. McConnell waited until weeks after Mr. Biden was declared the winner to recognize the outcome, his actions were a clear bid by the majority leader, who is the most powerful Republican in Congress, to put an end to his party’s attempts to sow doubt about the election.He was also trying to stave off a messy partisan spectacle on the floor of the House that could divide Republicans at the start of the new Congress, forcing them to choose between showing loyalty to Mr. Trump and protecting the sanctity of the electoral process.“Many of us hoped that the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20,” Mr. McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. “The Electoral College has spoken. So today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.”A short time later, on a private call with Senate Republicans, Mr. McConnell and his top deputies pleaded with their colleagues not to join members of the House in objecting to the election results on Jan. 6, when Congress meets to ratify the Electoral College’s decision, according to three people familiar with the conversation, who described it on the condition of anonymity.A small group of House members, led by Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, plans to use a constitutional process to object to the inclusion of five key battleground states that day. There is almost no chance they will succeed. But if they could persuade at least one senator to join them, they could force a vote on the matter, transforming a typically perfunctory session into a bitter last stand for Mr. Trump.So far, no senator has committed to joining them. In seeking to prevent anyone from doing so, Mr. McConnell argued that a challenge would force senators to go on the record either defying Mr. Trump or rejecting the will of the voters, potentially harming those running for election in 2022. He dispatched his top deputy, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, to lobby lawmakers one by one.The remarks were a decisive shift for Mr. McConnell. They came only after members of his leadership team in the Senate — and even the chamber’s chaplain — began softening the ground by congratulating Mr. Biden on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.Though he never repeated them, Mr. McConnell had allowed Mr. Trump’s false allegations of election fraud and fantastical claims that he had been the true winner to circulate unchecked for more than a month, defending the president’s right to challenge the election outcome in court. Allies insisted privately that he would ultimately honor the results, but did not want to stoke a year-end conflict that could hurt the party’s chances in two Georgia Senate runoffs and imperil must-pass legislation.That calculus changed late Monday, after electors across the country cast their ballots for Mr. Biden, cementing his 306 to 232 Electoral College victory. By Tuesday morning, Mr. McConnell and his leadership team were openly acknowledging the results and creating the political space for other Republicans to begin belatedly recognizing Mr. Biden as the winner.The Senate leader also spoke by phone with Mr. Biden, apparently for the first time since his former Senate colleague won the presidency more than five weeks ago.“I called to thank him for the congratulations, told him although we disagree on a lot of things, there’s things we can work together on,” Mr. Biden told reporters, adding that it was a “good conversation.”Mr. Biden won the Electoral College vote on Monday.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn normal times, such a call would have drawn little notice. But Mr. Trump’s push to deny his loss has created a charged political moment for Republicans, spotlighting rifts within the party and placing Mr. McConnell in a particularly dicey position.Polls suggest a clear majority of Republicans believe Mr. Trump’s fabrication that the election was fraudulent, and they are likely to follow the president’s words, not those of Mr. McConnell. Meanwhile, many of the president’s allies in the House continue to support his challenges to the results, with more than 60 percent of them signing on last week to a legal brief endorsing the failed effort by Texas to overturn results in key battleground states. The House’s top leaders were mostly silent on the question on Tuesday, and their aides did not respond to questions about Mr. Biden’s victory.Mr. Trump himself showed no signs of backing down, repeating his false allegations on Twitter just after Mr. McConnell spoke: “tremendous evidence pouring in on voter fraud.” Mr. Trump also shared a news article about Mr. Brooks’s efforts, raising the possibility that he could begin pressuring members of the party to join in, stoking an even bigger fight in the weeks ahead.Moving to head off potential backlash, Mr. McConnell told reporters pressing him to rebuke Mr. Trump’s rhetoric that he did not have “any advice” for Mr. Trump. Earlier in the day before congratulating Mr. Biden, he had used his speech on the Senate floor to lavish praise on the president’s record on foreign and domestic policy.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 15, 2020, 6:45 p.m. ETBiden will name Gina McCarthy as the White House’s climate coordinator.Dominion’s C.E.O. defends his firm’s voting machines to Michigan lawmakers, denouncing a ‘reckless disinformation campaign.’Biden will nominate Jennifer Granholm for energy secretary.The blowback was immediate from the party’s outspoken right flank anyway and foreshadowed the return to an old dynamic briefly abated during the Trump years in which Mr. McConnell was a favorite punching bag for conservatives. Mark Levin, the talk radio host and strident supporter of Mr. Tump, declared that Mr. McConnell had been “AWOL” from “challenging the lawless acts of the Biden campaign and Democrats.”“Trump helped you secure your seat, as he did so many Senate and House seats, and you couldn’t even wait until January 6th,” Mr. Levin wrote on Twitter. “You’ve been the GOP ‘leader’ in the Senate for far too long. It’s time for some fresh thinking and new blood.”Nor did Mr. McConnell earn much love from the few voices of Republican dissent that have raised alarms in recent days that Mr. Trump’s defiance of democratic norms — and the acquiescence of much of his party — would do lasting damage both to the G.O.P. and to the country.One of them, Representative Paul Mitchell of Michigan, who is retiring, went as far as to quit the party on Monday in protest. Another, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, said on Tuesday that merely recognizing Mr. Biden’s victory was not enough for his party.“How many Republicans will say that what the president is saying is simply wrong and dangerous?” Mr. Romney said on CNN. “We need to have people who are strong Trump supporters say that as well, or you are going to continue to have this country divided, which is pretty dangerous.”Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a senior Republican committee leader and former head of the party’s campaign arm, argued that fears like Mr. Romney’s were somewhat overwrought, but reflected a general loss of trust by many Americans in the electoral process.“We need to accept our institutions. They worked in 2016,” Mr. Cole said in an interview. “They worked again in 2020.”Elected officials, he said, need to “be honest with your voters.”“You have to recognize when you are not successful, and you move on and accept the election results,” he said. “The American people, I hope, will do that.”In the Senate, at least, that view appeared to be gaining currency.In a statement, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and a defender of the president, said that “absent new information that could give rise to a judicial or legislative determination altering the impact of today’s Electoral College votes, Joe Biden will become president of the United States.” An aide said he had no plans to join Mr. Brooks in challenging the results.Another leading contender for that task, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, seemingly threw cold water on the idea as well. Though Mr. Johnson plans to convene a hearing on Wednesday to give Mr. Trump’s specious arguments of voting fraud an airing in Congress, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he thought the outcome was legitimate and he did not plan to object to the Electoral College results.Still, other possible contenders remained. One was Tommy Tuberville, the newly elected Alabama Republican. Another possible candidate, those watching the process said, was Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, one of the two Republicans competing in January runoffs that will determine which party controls the Senate next year. Those races will play out the day before the joint session to ratify the presidential election results convenes in Washington.Ms. Loeffler’s office did not respond to a question about Mr. Biden on Tuesday, but on Twitter, she suggested she was not ready to accept the result.“I will never stop fighting for @realDonaldTrump because he has never stopped fighting for us!” she wrote.Luke Broadwater More

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      in Elections

      Trump Has Never Believed in Democracy

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Has Never Believed in DemocracyHe wants to wield power without winning it legitimately.Opinion ColumnistDec. 13, 2020A supporter of President Trump during a rally near the Supreme Court on Saturday to protest the results of the 2020 election.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesDonald Trump’s continued effort to overturn the result of the election — an effort buttressed by the support of many Republicans in Congress, it should be noted — is nothing short of an attempt at a bloodless coup.The only way Trump could achieve his aim of denying Joe Biden his rightfully earned victory would be if some people or entities — state legislatures, judges or the Supreme Court — were to agree to throw out millions of legally cast and appropriate votes. (It is also worth noting that many of the jurisdictions being disputed are heavily Black.)But a stinging defeat in the Supreme Court, packed with three justices of Trump’s own choosing, seems to have slammed the door on any legal path Trump might have had in his outrageous endeavor. The members of the Electoral College will meet on Monday and choose the next president. Barring any extraordinary and unprecedented developments, they will select Joe Biden, as the people already have.And yet, on Saturday Trump continued to insist on Twitter that “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE,” and that the Supreme Court ruling was incorrect: “This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!”That same day, Trump flew over a “Stop the Steal” rally at Washington’s Freedom Plaza, where the Proud Boys were a prominent presence.He keeps lying to his supporters, telling them — partly out of pride, partly out of a craven quest for power — that he was cheated and that he actually won the election. Many of them believe him. Right-wing media have aided him in his deception, as have Republican officials, either through their public pronouncements or through their silence.On Sunday, the House minority whip, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and said:“If you want to restore trust by millions of people who are still very frustrated and angry about what happened, that’s why you got to have this whole system play out.”But of course this isn’t about restoring faith in our elections; rather, it is about allowing Trump to further degrade that faith. Scalise and many other Republicans are accomplices in this crime against our democracy. Trump is still trying to steal this election, and they are outside revving the engine of the getaway car.That a majority of all Republicans in the House of Representatives expressed support for the frivolous Texas lawsuit signals to me that the difference between liberals and conservatives is no longer about values; it is now about a fundamental belief in democracy. Republicans appear to be saying that not all votes matter or should be counted. This is voter suppression on the grandest of scales, because it is an attempt at voter erasure, at eliminating votes that have already been cast and counted.All the while, Trump has continued to use the division and deception he has created to raise money. He has now collected more than $200 million in donations in support of his bogus election recounts.But, as The New York Times reported earlier this month:“Mr. Trump’s campaign apparatus has continued to aggressively solicit donations under the guise of supporting his various legal challenges to the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., but as of now 75 percent of donations goes to a new political action committee that Mr. Trump formed in mid-November, up to the PAC’s legal limit of $5,000. The other 25 percent goes to the Republican National Committee. Only if a donor gives more than $6,000 do any funds go to Mr. Trump’s formal ‘recount’ account.”Trump has realized that trying to steal the presidency is more lucrative than actually being president, so he won’t stop. We are witnessing one of the greatest grifts in the history of the presidency.The presidency gave Trump something he always craved but never possessed: constant attention and real, legitimate power. And, once tasted, power is craved forever.Trump has never believed in American democracy. He was never a student of history. He was never really a patriot.When he foreshadowed his current behavior in 2016 by refusing to say that he would accept the results of that election as legitimate if he didn’t win, we knew. When he cozied up to the world’s dictators and spurned our allies, we knew. When he winked at hate groups by refusing to immediately and fulsomely condemn them, we knew.Trump wants to operate a dictatorship behind a veil of democracy. He wants to wield power without winning it legitimately. He wants to manipulate his mob and prioritize it above the masses who oppose him.Yes, Trump is attempting a coup, whether or not you want to call it that. But, no matter what you choose to call something, it will still be what it is.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in US Politics

      After Trump review: a provocative case for reform by Biden and beyond

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      At times, the Trump administration has seemed like a wrecking ball, careening from floor to floor of a building being destroyed, observers never quite knowing where the ball will strike next. At others, it has worked stealthily to undermine rules and norms, presumably fearing that, as the great supreme court justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunshine is the best of disinfectants”.
      These changes, far beyond politics or differences of opinion on policy, should trouble all those who care about the future of the American republic. Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer, veterans of Republican (Bush) and Democratic (Clinton) administrations, are students of the presidency whose scholarship is informed by their service. They have combined to write a field guide to the damage and serious proposals to undo it.
      Presidencies do not exist in a vacuum, and many of the excesses of which the authors complain did not begin in 2017. But Trump upped the stakes: the violations of rules and norms are not merely quantitatively more numerous but qualitatively different. Whether seeking to fire the special counsel investigating him, making money from his businesses or attacking the press, he has made breathtaking changes.
      As the authors write, “Trump has merged the institution of the presidency with his personal interests and has used the former to serve the latter”, attacking “core institutions of American democracy” to an extent no president had before.
      The American constitutional system, unlike the British, is one of enumerated powers. But over 230 years, norms have arisen. Unlike laws of which violations are (usually) clear, norms are “nonlegal principles of appropriate or expected behavior that presidents and other officials tacitly accept and that typically structure their actions”. In an illustration of the great American poet Carl Sandburg’s observation that “The fog comes on little cat feet”, norms “are rarely noticed until they are violated, as the nation has experienced on a weekly and often daily basis during the Trump presidency”.
      Those two axioms – that Trump’s offences are worse than others and that norms can easily be overcome by a determined president – show reform is essential.
      The first section of After Trump deals with the presidency itself: the dangers of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, attacks on the press and abuses of the pardon power.
      Here the reforms – political campaigns reporting foreign contacts, a requirement to disclose the president’s tax returns and criminalizing pardons given to obstruct justice – are generally straightforward. Regarding the press, where Trump has engaged in “virulent, constant attacks” and tried to claim his Twitter account was not a public record even as he happily fired public officials on it, the authors would establish that due process applies to attempted removal of a press pass and make legal changes to deter harassment of or reprisals against the media because “the elevation of this issue clarifies, strengthens, and sets up an apparatus for the enforcement of norms”.
      Goldsmith and Bauer’s second section focuses on technical legal issues, specifically those surrounding special counsels, investigation of the president, and the relationship between the White House and justice department.
      The American constitution is far more rigid that the British but it too has points of subtlety and suppleness. One example is the relationship between the president and an attorney general subordinate to the president but also duty bound to provide impartial justice, even when it concerns the president.
      The issues may seem arcane, but they are vital: “Of the multitude of norms that Donald Trump has broken as president, perhaps none has caused more commentary and consternation than his efforts to defy justice department independence and politicize the department’s enforcement of civil and criminal law.”
      And yet even as the attorney general, William Barr, sought a more lenient sentence for Roger Stone, stood by as Trump fired the US attorney in New York City, and kept up a “running public commentary” on an investigation of the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign, the authors oppose those actions but remain cautious. They decline to endorse some of the more radical proposals, such as separating the justice department from the executive branch. More

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      in Elections

      ‘An Indelible Stain’: How the G.O.P. Tried to Topple a Pillar of Democracy

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      The US election's 'safe harbor' deadline is here. What does that mean for Biden?

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      While Donald Trump continues to falsely insist he won the 2020 race, Tuesday marks an important deadline further cementing that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as America’s 46th president on 20 January.
      This year, 8 December is the so-called “safe harbor” deadline, which federal law says must fall six days before electors meet across the country to cast their votes for president. The statute says that as long as states use existing state law to resolve disputes about electors by the deadline, the votes cast by those electors will be “conclusive”. It is meant to act as a safeguard so that Congress, which will count the electoral votes on 6 January, can’t second-guess or overturn the election results.
      At least one Republican member of Congress, Mo Brooks of Alabama, has said he will object to electors and Republicans in Pennsylvania have urged lawmakers to do the same. Those challenges are unlikely to be successful because a majority of both houses would have to agree to the challenge. Democrats control a majority of the US House of Representatives.
      The Guardian spoke to Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, about the importance of the safe harbor deadline and what it could mean.
      Why is the safe harbor deadline so important?
      The key concept of safe harbor is the benefit that states get if they meet it. But it’s optional.
      It’s desirable that they get this benefit, but it’s not essential. And what makes it desirable is Congress promises to accept as “conclusive” – that’s the statutory language – any resolution that the state itself meets if it complies with these two requirements, one being timing and the other being the use of existing law.
      A state puts itself in as good a position as possible to have its electoral votes accepted by Congress if it’s safe-harbor-compliant. Because if Congress obeys its own promise, then it’s a done deal.
      Lacking safe harbor status doesn’t mean a state’s electoral votes are going to be rejected by Congress. It just means that they’re arriving in Congress without the benefit of a super-shield, if you will.
      Are there states that are at risk of not meeting safe harbor? It seems like every state has certified.
      Yes. Certification is not sufficient for safe harbor status.
      Electors have to be certified and they have to get their own certificates of ascertainment from the governor, and that then allows them to go to the state capitol and vote … That’s happened at least in enough states now for Biden to be above 270 electoral votes. There’s no danger of that not happening.
      States that have litigation procedures written into state law to challenge a certification, even after the certification has occurred … it’s often called a contest. That’s a term of art, in law, that means you’re contesting the certification. If any state has a procedure like that … that’s what has to be finalized by 8 December for safe harbor status.
      Wisconsin, for example, is a state that’s looking like at the moment like it’s not going to achieve safe harbor status because it has a hearing on 10 December in state court pursuant to a procedure that exists in state law … I’m not expecting that procedure to be successful in overturning certification. But I think it does mean that there will not be a final determination of that controversy or contest concerning the appointment of electors until after 8 December.
      And that opens the door for Congress to second-guess the electoral votes that Wisconsin is sending?
      It deprives Wisconsin of that super-shield that we were talking about. It doesn’t mean that Congress will reject the votes. I don’t think it puts Wisconsin’s votes in any practical jeopardy. But it does put them in a different legal status.
      Representative Brooks from Alabama says he’s going to object to Biden’s electoral votes. I don’t know if he specified which states. But in my judgment it is inappropriate for any member of Congress, representative or senator, to file an objection to any electoral votes that actually have safe harbor status.
      Congress should treat safe harbor status in the way the law calls for it to be treated. It’s conclusive. There shouldn’t be any objections filed to anything that a member of Congress believes to have safe harbor status. But if it doesn’t have safe harbor status, then I think it opens it up, as you said, to congressional second-guessing, in a way that safe harbor status shouldn’t.
      When a state meets safe harbor, a member of Congress and a senator can still object to its electoral votes. And I expect we will see those objections. You talked about safe harbor offering a super-shield. What does that protection actually look like?
      Unless there’s some court that’s gonna try and tell Congress what to do on 6 January, which I don’t really envision, then it’s up to Congress to police itself in terms of its own rules.
      Every conscientious member of Congress, whether representative or senator, once the objection is raised … they’re not supposed to say: ‘Who do I think won Georgia? Who do I think won Pennsylvania?’ They’re supposed to ask themselves: ‘Did Georgia and Pennsylvania utilize a procedure to achieve its own resolution of that issue? Did they do so by 8 December?’
      It’s up to Congress to abide by that rule that Congress created and not be tempted to second-guess a decision that it’s not supposed to second-guess. But human beings being human beings, if members of Congress want to ignore their own rules and second-guess something which they shouldn’t be second guessing, then who’s to stop them?
      A lot of people are going to hear that and say: ‘If it’s up to Congress to police itself, that’s not reassuring.’ I think a lot of people will have a hard time believing there are going to be Republican senators, with a few exceptions, that aren’t willing to go along with an objection.
      I totally get the realism there. And I understand why readers would want to think that. But here’s where I think maybe the safe harbor concept might provide a buffer for some.
      Take someone like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. It might be that the concept of this super-shield could actually help him both in his own internal and mental deliberations and also with his constituency, by saying: ‘Look, I’m trying to do a job here and the job I’m supposed to do is respect state law. I’ve been told by the relevant act of Congress that I’m obligated to accept the state’s judgment. I’m not going to ask myself who won Georgia. I’m only going to ask myself whether Georgia reached a final answer.’
      How concerned should people be if a state like Wisconsin doesn’t meet safe harbor?
      This year, as a practical matter, I wouldn’t have any concern. I think it’s unfortunate that Wisconsin wound up where it will. I think it was unnecessary.
      I think the extent to which we get more objections of the Representative Brooks kind, it’s going to erode Congress’s own self-policing, which they should do, which is probably not a good thing.
      There’s no threat to Biden’s inauguration. What there is potentially … if one senator signs anything that Representative Brooks submits, that’s going to cause there to be a repeat of what happened in 2004 … I think there will be roll-call votes.
      Even though Biden’s going to be inaugurated, if a lot of senators go on record agreeing with Brooks, that’s agreeing with a claim that Biden didn’t win those states.
      I think that’s a very likely scenario.
      It’s taking us into a realm of American politics that I’m not sure we’ve had before. I mean, it’s a denial of reality that’s very dangerous.
      Elections require accepting results, even if your team loses. Your team will win next time, maybe. You give the winning team a chance to govern based on what the voters said this time. You have to acknowledge that reality. For significant numbers of members of Congress, going on the record, if that’s what happens, in defiance of that reality, that will be really dangerous for the operation of competitive elections.
      This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity More

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      in US Politics

      Congress to pass shutdown-averting bill to continue coronavirus stimulus talks

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      Congress is poised to pass a stopgap funding measure that will avert a government shutdown and provide lawmakers more time to negotiate an emergency coronavirus stimulus legislation amid deepening economic pain.Negotiations over a $1.4tn catch-all spending package are playing out alongside bipartisan efforts to pass long-delayed Covid-19 economic relief.Congressional leaders hope to attach the stimulus bill to the must-pass spending bill, though several key sticking points remain.On Monday, the Democratic House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said that the House would vote on Wednesday on a one-week spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to avoid a government shutdown while lawmakers race to reach an agreement. Government funding for federal agencies is due to expire on Friday.Hoyer had initially told lawmakers that the House would finalize its end-of-year business this week, allowing lawmakers to leave Washington for the year, but negotiations over the omnibus spending bill were proceeding more slowly than he had hoped.“I am disappointed that we have not yet reached agreement on government funding,” Hoyer wrote on Twitter. “The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR to keep government open while negotiations continue.”A bipartisan group of senators expressed optimism about a $908bn aid proposal to help alleviate the financial disaster facing millions of American families and businesses as a rise in coronavirus cases threatens the labor market, which has struggled to fully recover from the economic downturn that followed the pandemic’s arrival in March.But their plan, the details of which could be released as early as Monday, remains hung up over provisions to aid states and localities, a Democratic priority, and liability protections for businesses from Covid-related lawsuits, which Republicans want.The proposal is less than half of the $2.2tn relief package passed by the Democratic-controlled House in October and does not include the direct payments to Americans that Trump sought before the election.Yet the senators’ plan is nearly double the $500bn package proposed by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who advocated a list of “targeted” relief provisions he said the president would sign.Lawmakers quickly enacted a $3tn aid package to salvage the economy earlier this year, but they have been deadlocked for months over whether to approve another stimulus plan.President-elect Joe Biden has urged Congress to act immediately and endorsed the senators’ bipartisan framework, calling it a “down payment” that would provide immediate relief to those suffering the economic consequences of the virus. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, also tentatively expressed support, saying they would use the plan as a “framework” for their negotiations with Republican leaders, which are proceeding on a different track from the talks with the senators. On Monday, the White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the Trump administration and Congress were nearing an agreement on aid.“We are moving in the right direction, I think,” Kudlow said in an online interview with the Washington Post. “We are getting closer.”The US Chamber of Commerce said in a new memo to Congress that failure to enact relief would risk a “double-dip recession” – which occurs when a recession is followed by a brief recovery and then another recession – that would permanently shutter small businesses and leave millions of Americans with no means of support.The same issues have blocked coronavirus relief legislation for months, leading to mounting frustrations among business owners, unions, state and local government officials, and ordinary Americans.Considering the weakening of the economy coupled with a surge in Covid-19 cases at a time when previously approved relief mechanisms are due to expire, it would be “stupidity on steroids if Congress doesn’t act”, said the Democratic senator Mark Warner, a member of the bipartisan group that wrote the proposal, to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.A group of emergency aid programs implemented in response to the pandemic, including additional unemployment benefits and a moratorium on renter evictions, is due to expire at the end of December.With US coronavirus deaths topping 283,000 and pressure mounting for aid to a fragile economy, the new package is expected to include fresh emergency assistance for small businesses, unemployment benefits, and funding for Covid-19 vaccine distribution.“We have to get something done for the American people,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Monday, “before the end of the year.” More